


just trying to find a way

by vexedcer



Series: brooklyn bridge [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, theres an anxiety attack but its like super super lowkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: Simon ducks his head, chin tucked to his chest. “I didn’t want to bother anyone - with Valentine and everything that’s going on, I figured everyone had enough to deal with.”(Jace and Simon talk about the night before, and other things.)





	just trying to find a way

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings: implied suicide attempts/suicidal thoughts, depression, a minor anxiety/panic attack. I also bash Clary a little bit but dw i love her

Magnus doesn't seem like the kind of guy to have a quiet apartment - his personality is big and loud enough to fill every crevice so somehow it followed in his head that Magnus’ apartment should be teeming with sound.

He listens to the relative silence, face still buried in the covers, trying to block out the whole world for a little while longer.

There's the subtle  _ clink _ of cutlery against ceramics, the once enticing smell of eggs wafting under the door, the timber of voices speaking in another room.

He knows that when he gets up, he'll have to talk about last night and - he's not sure he's ready yet. He might never be ready.

Or maybe he's ready and the thick clouds in his brain are trying to tell him otherwise. He knows that weird way that depression can be intoxicating, addictive. It drags you in and holds you prisoner, gives you all the excuses for why you didn't do your English assignment, or didn't get out of bed, or -

Why you tried to kill yourself.

Thinking of it that way drops a weight on his stomach. He liked to separate the two in his head - the act and it's own name. If he doesn't call it suicidal, then that's not what it is, right?

He's wrong, of course. He always seems to be. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, a suicide is a suicide if he orchestrates it himself. 

His bones feel heavy; he knows this feeling, is familiar with how it holds him down in his bed. He spent the better part of July and August like this when he was seventeen, curled up under his sheets with the heavy emptiness of his chest weighing him down. Clary used to run her fingers through his hair and tell him about the summer classes she was taking at Tisch. 

He was so in love with her then, but even that got lost in the drowning sea of his mind.

He doesn't have enough energy to even really mean it when he thinks  _ fuck you, Depression.  _

Despite everything, despite the Seelie court and the kiss she most desired and everything that somehow went wrong between them, he kinda wishes she was here. To play with his curls and talk endlessly about how  _ annoying _ this kid Michael in her anatomy class is, with his know-it-all answers and smug smiles. 

He honestly doesn't give a shit about any of it but just listening to Clary made the world a little bit more bearable.

There's a light knock on his door, hesitant and unsure. He curls tighter in on himself before directing a flat  _ come in  _ towards the closed door.

He doesn't think he can get up today. All his bones are tired and heavy - he never understood how this works, how his body makes him feel like all his muscles have turned to stone.

Jace leaves the door ajar, the light from the other side spilling in a shaft to the side of the room. He’s wearing the same clothes as last night, sans the leather jacket and heavy boots that give him that macho don't-fuck-with-me edge. The soft henley is rumbled and grey.

He looks tired.

He hovers at the foot of the bed for a moment, like he's expecting him to leap up and say everything is fine, really, last night was just a fluke, and it won't happen again. 

“I don't think I can get up,” he says quietly instead. He feels weak admitting that to the mighty Jace Wayland-Lightwood-Herondale-who-the-fuck-knows-anymore that the literal nothingness in his brain that made him stand at a bridge’s edge and seriously consider swan-diving off is making it impossible to leave his own bed.

He could understand, if Jace was the one who wanted to kill himself, it would make a sick sort of sense. The guy's had it really fucking rough since they met, and that was only a month and a half ago.

And Simon's definitely had his moments for the past six weeks, but the universe just keeps slinging shit Jace’s way and _he just_ _can't understand how he keeps getting back up._ Carrying on. Keeps going when all the world has ever done to him is fuck him over.

“What do you need, Simon?” Jace asks. His voice is serious and honest, low in the curtain-drawn darkness of the room. He has this sort of stance that he's seen before, in briefings and when being given orders. His eyes are intent on him, waiting for a single word he can abide by.

He swallows hard against the dryness in his throat. His stomach feels hollow, and he's not actually hungry but he knows he hasn't fed in at least twelve hours so he rumbles, “Blood,” with the bedsheets still half obscuring his face.

Jace nods with a soldier’s efficiency, leaving and coming back with a pint filled glass.

He uses strength he didn't know he had to sit up and take the glass from Jace, arms slow moving for steadiness. He feels like he's testing for aches and pains but it's only wary tiredness settled in his muscles. He goes slow, slow even for a mundane. 

The O-Neg is gone before he can really process that he drank it and Jace takes the glass from his hands to place on the nightstand.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed, next to his covered legs - he doesn't remember tucking himself in. Magnus must have done it while he was asleep.

He knows Magnus checks on him in the middle of the night sometimes, when he can't sleep. Most people don't seem to realise how worrisome Magnus truly is, or how loving and soft.

Maybe it's because of Alec, and by extension through him, his merry band of misfits became something Magnus has deemed worthy enough to worry about.

Magnus’ worry is the thing that's put him in this position - if Magnus didn't care then he wouldn't have asked Jace to look for him, Jace wouldn't have coaxed him from the edge of Brooklyn Bridge. 

“Simon,” Jace starts, looking resigned. He seems at loss for words before “ _ Why?” _ manages to make its way out of his throat.

He shrugs, looking down at his lap. His fingers are curling together, picking at the skin around his nails. “I don't know,” he says honestly. “I don't have a reason.”

“There must be a reason -”

“There isn't, Jace,” he says harshly through his teeth, his voice angry and shoulders tense, before they drop and he deflates again. “Sorry, sorry -” he takes a deep breath.

He forgot about the hot flashes of anger that can rise up out of him suddenly and dispel as quickly as they came. 

“Everything was just - too much. Too loud and big. I just needed - to get away.”

Jace reaches forward to stop his hands picking at his fingernails. The skin is raw and sore-looking, but the pain feels distant and disconnected. Jace keeps one hand between his own.

“Simon, what can we do to help?” He says, in that same quiet voice that sounds like he's afraid he'll bolt if he moves too fast. He shrugs but Jace isn't deterred. “We all wanna support you -”

“You haven't told anyone else, have you?”

The thought comes rushing forward out of the thick mass of ideas mixing together in his head.

The thought panics him - he supposed a huge element of all of this is that Simon needs to be in control; who knows and how he tells them. Magnus and Jace knowing hasn't fully registered until now, but the idea of them telling Alec and Izzy gives him a feeling that used to be associated with a pounding, thunderous heartbeat.

Clary already knows because she's seen the worst of it, but the thought of her finding out from Magnus or Jace that he was further gone than she'd ever witnessed is -

He can see the way she'd cry and blame herself, and he's decided that it is kinda her fault because lies and betrayal by someone you love so much can really fucking mess you up, but Clary's always been a kind of loud ugly crier and he still loves her despite everything.

Jace's voice is telling him to take deep breaths, in-out-in-out, and suddenly he's gasping for air like a man drowned. He's gripping Jace's hand like a vice and it probably hurts like hell because vampire strength but he just grips back as the clouds on his lungs dissipate.

“We haven't told anyone,” Jace says in a calm voice when his breathing is steadier. “Magnus called Alec last night to ask if you were at the Institute, but he didn't say anything else.”

“Okay,” he says, “Okay.”

They fall into silence, Jace still holding his hand, but they both have a more lax grip. He can hear the sound of Magnus tinkering around in the living room, the swish of a stirring pot and the clink of metal on glass.

“What's Magnus doing?” He asks.

Jace looks towards where the door is still ajar, listening for the subtle noises that he probably can't hear. “He has a client in about an hour, so he's preparing something for them.”

That guilt drops into his stomach again; here he is with his issues encroaching on everyone’s lives. Magnus’ living is helping people, and he does it for him for free. 

And there's also Jace sitting here, with his hand firmly between his own, with no intention of leaving. 

“When do you have to be back at the Institute?” 

Jace grips tighter. “Not for a few hours.” When he opens his mouth to question him, Jace continues. “I asked Alec to reassign my duties until tonight.”

Ah, there's that guilt again. People rearranging their lives for him. 

“And he just did it?”

“He's my parabati,” Jace says in explanation, “He trusts me.”

“What about Clary? Won't she wonder where you are?” He thinks it sounds bitter, but he's depressed, he tried to kill himself last night - bitterness is definitely a step down from straight up suicidal.

“Probably,” he agrees, taking the tone in his stride. “But she has things to do right now, she needs to focus on that.”

“I'm not mad at you, y'know.” He keeps his eyes on their hands. “You were stuck in vines just like me. Clary was the one with the choice, we kinda just had to go with it.”

“I kissed her back.”

He winces. “Yeah, that kinda sucked.” He takes a breath. “But if you decide to get back together - I'll need some time to get over everything, but that's fine.”

“Simon,” he says, “Simon, look at me.” It takes a second, but when he finally does it, Jace looks intense. “I'm not getting back together with Clary.”

“But -”

“I'm not. When I thought Clary was my sister, I felt so - disgusting. That's like me and Isabelle, or you and your sister. It's just wrong. I tried so hard to get rid of everything I felt all at once, but it didn't work.”

Jace's eyes are wide with the confession, and he feels his still heart crumple in his chest. He appreciates Jace being here, he really does, but he doesn't really want to hear how much he loves his not-sister, when he had his own heart broken by her so recently.

“But despite all that, I don't love her anymore, not like that. It took some time but -” Jace finally looks down and away. “I think I'll always love her, but it's not - I don't want her that way anymore.”

“Oh.”

The admission is followed by a heavy quiet, loaded with unanswered and possibly unanswerable questions. He picks one.

“Why did you kiss her back? In the Seelie Court?”

Jace sighs. “I figured the Queen wanted a show, so I just gave it to her. I felt weird and terrible after, because I don't love her and she broke your heart.”

He listens to the sound of Magnus grinding a pestle and mortar against each other in the next room. 

“Simon, you know we're all here for you, don't you?”

“Even Alec?”

Jace laughs. It's a private chuckle he's never heard before; usually when Jace laughs, it's at him in a mocking way. But now that everything between them and Clary has ended for the unforeseeable future, he guesses that the two of them might have a shot at something friendlier.

“Yeah, I guess Alec too,” he says, amused. “You're important to Magnus and you're important to me, so I guess he has to care about you now.”

“I'm important to you?”

Jace's face softens slightly at the question. “Yeah, you are.”

“Why?”

Jace looks away. “Jesus, Simon. You're - you’re a good person. We were raised into it or we choose it ourselves but you got dragged into this and you didn't get a choice in turning. We kill demons and you're just trying to find a way to keep your family safe.”

Jace looks down at their hands, twisted together in a knot. This is a new side of Jace he's never seen - the vulnerable, pained, honest side that's well hidden behind layers of snark, sardonic humour and intensity. 

“You just want everyone to be happy, Clary and your mom - you’re selfless to the point where you didn’t talk to any of us before you nearly jumped off a bridge.”

Simon ducks his head, chin tucked to his chest. “I didn’t want to bother anyone - with Valentine and everything that’s going on, I figured everyone had enough to deal with.”

“Simon -” He looks at Jace, his eyes filled with something he can’t place, “Just come talk to me, or Magnus, or even Alec if things get this bad again. I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t saving your ass all the time.” 

He uses his free hand to shove Jace for the jab, pushing hard because he knows he can take it, and the two of them laugh. It feels good to laugh.

The blackness has receded some, enough to let some light in, make him feel a little he’s actually living rather than just being alive - he’s actually neither because of the inherent undeadness of vampires but this might be the closest thing to feeling normal that he has since this whole crazy world shifting thing started.

He’s not cured; he can still feel the thick darkness on the heels of all his thoughts, knows it will stick around for a lot longer than it has before, because falling all the way down means you have to climb back the whole way up. 

But he feels better right now. Maybe that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i used a lot of my own experience of mental health issues as a basis for this, so if something here feels off to you and your experiences, these closely mirror mine and may not reflect yours.


End file.
